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Listening to: From the Choirgirl Hotel. Not for long, though... it's not really matching my mood quite like I was expecting it too.

Currently Reading: Just barely started Jonathan Lethem's Gun, With Occasional Music. Kind of saving it for the train, as well as a stack of others (both fiction and non). Also, I recently read Laurie Notaro's I Love Everybody (and Other Atrocious Lies): True Tales of a Loudmouth Girl (again) in like two days, and peed myself laughing. Highly recommended. I also devoured The Broke Diaries by Angela Nissel in, like, a mere few days. Laughed until I peed. Also highly recommended.

Wishing: income. Lots of it. Other than that, life's pretty good.

I couldn't be more The current mood of ronkc@diaryland.com at www.imood.com right now.

Buy "Civilised Conversation..." Merchandise! Please? All the cool kids are doing it....

Please help me pay for college by purchasing items from Amazon.com through this link!!

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22 April 2004 | 10:49 PM

Mr. Wizard and Take-Yer-Kidz-Ta-Werk Day

Okay.

So, I'm in Chapel Choir with a Physics professor. So, whenever I'm amazed by anything in the... anything, I turn to Paul, and ask that he explain everything. Fortunately, he knows that I'm a sociology major (I graduate in June-- is it acceptable to say that I'm a sociologist?) so he really dumbs it down so (a) I get it, and (b) I don't feel like a damned fool. Here was my question the other day, sent via email:

Hey Mister Wizard.
I'm having a science moment and could use your experteese.
You know how when you're, like, finishing off a bowl of cherios, and there's like twelve left, and then there's like, three all clinging together on one side of the bowl, and then there's like, four clinging together in the middle of the milk, and then theres like, (okay 12-4=8, 8-3=...) um, eight clinging to the other side of the bowl? Why do they all cling together like that? And why do they sometimes cling to the side of the bowl, but not always?
Thanks for your help, hope you're having a great weekend!
yours, Chris

So then he writes back:

Chris,
Sorry I didn't get back to you about this sooner. I hope your Cheerio eating has not been negatively impacted by my delay.
Here's what's going on: When a Cheerio sits on the surface of the milk, the milk stretches up the side of the Cheerio a little bit due to an effect called capillary action. As a result, the surface of the milk gets distorted, and surface tension pulls on the Cheerio. For a single Cheerio in the middle of the bowl the pull is the same in every direction, so there's no net force on the Cheerio, but if two Cheerios are close together the surface tension tends to pull them towards each other. The effect "falls off rapidly with distance", meaning that only Cheerios that are very close to each other attract each other. The same effect tends to attract the Cheerios to the sides of the bowl, but there also the attraction is very small and is weaker the farther the Cheerio is from the wall.
If you are one of the last dozen Cheerios in the bowl, you have lots of very weak forces pulling you in different directions depending on how far away the other Cheerios and the sides of the bowl are. (To complicate the matter, there are probably small currents in the milk that are pushing you around, too, and viscous drag exerted by the milk and the air.) Which way you go is hard to predict and depends sensitively on the exact configuration of Cheerios at any moment. What makes it more complicated is that as you move around, your influence on all those other Cheerios changes too, making them move around, which changes their influence on you, etc. The tendency is for the Cheerios to clump together, but the pull from the sides of the bowl and the other clumps (along with the currents, etc.) and the fact that the clumps have more inertia the more Cheerios they accumulate means that they don't usually end up in one large clump.
This is a good example of a phenomenon known as "self-organization". In this case, a random distribution of little bits assembles itself into larger entities, the clumps. It's the same sort of thing that produces galaxies and solar systems out of the primordial dust and gas -- in that case, the attractive force is gravity, and the "clumps" of various sizes are stars, planets, whole solar systems, galaxies, etc. So the next time you're watching the last few Cheerios, remember that you're watching the same process that made (and is making) the universe. Then eat them.
That's probably more than you wanted to know. I hope it was interesting. I'm getting some ideas for student research projects involving breakfast cereals now.
See you later, -- pwf

I am so glad I know smart people.

This morning, I was walking downtown, and, today being "Bring Your Child To Work Day" (or as I call it, "Look Mommy! I'm helping!----**BOOOOOOMMM!!**"), I saw a lot of people walking to work with their kids. I thought it was cute.

Until.

I saw this woman and her daughter walking together.

In matching outfits.

They were both wearing sorbet-shade vertically striped shirts with khaki capris and those stupid flip-flops with the high heel on 'em. They were wearing a really long pink ribbon tied into a pretty bow as a belt.

They had matching purses, too.

So, I threw up on the little girl. The woman goes, "How DARE you?"

To which I answered, "How dare *I*?! How dare YOU scar this poor child for life by doing something this horrible to her!?! I hope you have good insurance benefits, lady, 'cause this little bitch all up in here (points to the girl) is going to need YEARS of therapy from you dressin' her all up like you for 'Look Mommy I'm Helping... BOOM' day!!!" And then I slapped the woman.

I'm just kidding.

I didn't actually slap her.

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Oh, Whoops. - 10:34 PM , 02 September 2005

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Just Let Her Go. - 12:12 AM , 20 March 2005

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